D Art 99 of the Treaty of Versailles With Regard to Memel

In January 1919, two months afterwards the fighting in Globe War I ceased, a conference was convened at Versailles, the old country estate of the French monarchy exterior Paris, to work out the terms of a peace treaty to officially end the conflict.

Though representatives of near 30 nations attended, the peace terms essentially were written past the leaders of the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, France and the United States, who along with Italy, formed the "Big 4" that dominated the proceedings. The defeated countries—Germany and allies Austria-hungary, Turkey and Republic of bulgaria—weren't invited to participate.

In the terminate the Allies agreed that they would punish Federal republic of germany and attempt to weaken that nation so much that information technology wouldn't pose a future threat. Germany'due south representatives had no real selection but to accept the terms.

Italian Premier Vittorio Orlando, British Prime number Government minister David Lloyd George, French Premier Georges Clemenceau & U.Southward. President Woodrow Wilson meeting at Wilson's Paris home prior to the signing of the Versailles Treaty.

Bettmann Annal/Getty Images

The text of the treaty signed in Versailles' Hall of Mirrors on June 28, 1919 amounted to 240 pages and independent 440 split articles. The treaty lacked long-term enforcement mechanisms and was farther weakened when, despite U.S. President Woodrow Wilson'due south efforts, the U.S. Congress refused to ratify information technology in November 1919.

Some take argued that the treaty's harsh terms really contributed to conditions that led to Europe plunging into another war but 20 years afterwards.

  Here are some of the key provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.

Manus Over Territories and Colonies

Manufactures 45-40 compelled Germany to turn over its coal mines in the Saar Basin to France, although they technically were under control of the League of Nations.

"After a fifteen-yr flow, there was supposed to be a referendum and residents could choose whether to be German or French," explains Karl Qualls, a professor of history at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. When the election finally was held in 1935, 90 percent of them voted to be part of Deutschland.

Commodity 51 took the territory of Alsace-Lorraine, which Germany had seized during the 1871 and gave information technology back to France.

Articles 42-44 and Article 180 forced the Germans to dismantle their fortifications along the Rhine river. Demilitarization of the Rhineland "was a big initiative of France," says Qualls. "They were trying to prevent Germany from being an aggressive power again, and as well weakening them by allowing for an invasion by France likewise."

Article 80 required Germany to respect the independence of Austria.

Treaty of Versailles with signatures of Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson, Andrew Bonar Law and James Balfour.

Universal History Archive/UIG/Getty images

Manufactures 81-86 compelled Deutschland to renounce territorial claims and recognize the independence of Czechoslovakia, a new nation formed from several provinces of sometime German language marry Republic of austria-Hungary, whose western portion had a sizable minority of indigenous Germans.

Articles 87-93 gave what had been German West Prussia and other territory with ethnic German inhabitants to newly-contained Poland.

Commodity 119 stripped Federal republic of germany of its colonies in Mainland china and Africa, which Qualls explains was a specially humbling provision. Prior to the war, "if yous were going to be a European power, you had to have colonial possessions," he says.

Limits on Arms, Forces and Equipment

Articles 159-163 reduced the size of the German regular army, which had reached i.ix meg troops during World War I, to just 100,000, and mandated that the force "shall be devoted exclusively to the maintenance of order within the territory and to the control of the frontiers."

Curlicue to Continue

It fifty-fifty specified strict limits on the number of infantry, artillery and engineers, and limited the officer corps to 4,000. The German military machine was just neutered, basically," Qualls says.

Articles 164-172 disarmed the German armed services, limiting the number of weapons and fifty-fifty how much ammunition it could possess. Smaller artillery pieces, for case, were allotted ane,500 rounds, while bigger guns got just 500 shells. Germany could simply industry new war materiel in a few factories approved by the Allies. The Germans had to plough over vast amounts of equipment, from tanks and auto guns to telephones.

Articles 181-197 reduced Germany's naval forces to a skeleton forcefulness that included just half-dozen battleships, half-dozen light cruisers, 12 destroyers and 12 torpedo boats, and totally eliminated the submarine armada that had terrorized ships in the Atlantic.

Manufactures 198-202 prohibited Germany from having an air force, except for upward to 100 seaplanes to work in minesweeping operations. Zeppelins, which had been used to bomb the United kingdom during the war, were banned likewise.

State of war Crimes Trials

Manufactures 227-230 authorized the Allies to conduct war crimes trials. Article 227 called for a five-judge tribunal to put the abdicated Kaiser Wilhelm Ii on trial "or a supreme offence against international morality and the sanctity of treaties."

Full general Paul von Hindenburg, Kaiser Wilhelm & General Erich von Ludendorff at High german headquarters during WWI.

Time Life Pictures/German Official Photo/War Dept./National Archives/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

That never really happened, because holland, where Wilhelm had sought asylum declined to extradite him, and he somewhen died at that place in 1941. The Allies did put 17 other Germans on trial on allegations ranging from looting to sinking a infirmary transport, co-ordinate to the International Encyclopedia for the Beginning Earth War. Some were acquitted, while others were found guilty but generally received light sentences.

$33 Billion in Reparations

Article 231, commonly called the war guilt clause, required Germany to accept responsibleness for causing "all the loss and harm" inflicted on the Allies. That provision became the basis for the Allies for demand that Germany pay reparations, which were set by a series of conferences in 1920 at $33 billion (virtually $423 billion in 2019 dollars).

"I believe that the campaign for securing out of Federal republic of germany the general costs of the war was i of the most serious acts of political unwisdom for which our statesmen accept ever been responsible," economist John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1920.

Germany was already in deep fiscal trouble, due to the erstwhile majestic regime'southward trick of press a lot of currency and borrowing heavily to cover its war machine expenditures. The new High german regime, struggling under the weight of debt and upkeep deficits, defaulted on the payments in gold-backed marks that it was obligated to make. France then tried to put on the force per unit area by occupying the Ruhr, an industrial region in western Federal republic of germany. That merely exacerbated Germany's economic chaos, and contributed to the hyperinflation that made the nation's currency virtually worthless in 1923.

German Humiliation, Debt & Earth State of war II

Eventually, the United States came up with the idea of lending money to Federal republic of germany to pay the reparations. In the cease, though, the Allies got very little coin from Germany, and the reparations were cancelled at the Lausanne Briefing in 1932.

"The reparations and dismantling of the German military were humiliating for many Germans, primarily because the German military and press had been lying to the public about the war," Quall says.

Anger over the imagined betrayal, in plow, helped fuel the rise of populism and nationalism that eventually led to the rise of Hitler, who proceeded to violate the treaty by rearming Germany. Hitler subsequently defied other provisions as well, including re-militarizing the Rhineland and joining into a union with Austria.

After bullying the British and French into abandoning yet another provision of the Versailles treaty by giving in to his territorial demands upon Czechoslovakia in 1938, the Nazi leader was sufficiently emboldened to invade Poland and start World State of war II in 1939.

READ MORE: How the Treaty of Versailles and German Guilt Led to Earth War 2

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Source: https://www.history.com/news/treaty-of-versailles-provisions

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